Monthly Archives: July 2010

A few months ago, I posted a list of the winningest coaches in Wyoming high school football history. Since then, I’ve updated the list to include coaches from 1933 to 1945, and the list has shuffled a bit.

Here are the overall records for Wyoming coaches that have won at least 90 games, at least according to the listings I have:

Coach

Wins

Losses

Ties

Dayton, Todd

242

49

0

Deti, John E.

204

94

8

Deti, John R.

188

102

2

Fullmer, Jerry

174

82

0

McDougall, John

156

115

2

Eskelsen, Joel

147

81

0

Hoff, Dallas

144

95

6

Gray, Walter

140

87

0

Moon, Mike

136

79

1

Scherry, Rick

133

84

1

Hill, Art

132

92

3

Bailey, Harold

128

92

0

Blanchard, Okie

126

36

4

Mirich, Carl

124

101

1

Keith, Bruce

117

82

0

Harshman, Steve

114

64

0

Dinnel, Don

113

61

0

Petronovich, Pete

113

102

5

Fackrell, Kay

111

79

0

Bartlett, Doug

102

73

0

Smith, Ben

101

33

0

Miller, Barry

97

83

1

Wiseman, Jim

97

50

1

Hart, Jerry

95

40

2

Gamble, Tony

93

55

2

Bullington, Mark

92

19

0

Steege, Rich

91

119

0

The big addition to this list from the 1933-45 era is Okie Blanchard, who posted a 126-36-4 record from 1933-52 with Rock Springs, Natrona and Cheyenne Central. His career record is probably better than that, as I believe he spent a few years prior to 1933 coaching, as well. It’s interesting to note that Blanchard was also the UW football coach in 1941, in between his three-year stint coaching Natrona and his 11 years at Central.

It’s also interesting that Blanchard split time at three schools. That’s sort of a rarity for the list, which is dominated by guys who pretty much stayed at one school. Other coaches on the list who were head coaches at three schools are John R. Deti (Cody, Sheridan and Laramie), Art Hill (Glenrock, Riverton and Natrona), Don Dinnel (Mountain View, Rawlins and Evanston) and Kay Fackrell (Goshen Hole, Lyman and Evanston).

Of course, this is an incomplete list. It doesn’t include coaching records prior to 1933 and doesn’t include coaches who are missing (you can find out which teams those are by checking out the list of missing coaches for the Coaches Project).

What is lost in nine years of mythical championships — nine years of saying “My team is better than your team” when, in many cases, the two teams had not played any similar opponents, let alone each other — is the contributions made by those players to what’s often called the “dead era” of Wyoming high school football.

I wrote about my desire to uncover the champions from the “dead era” a couple years ago. The champions in the years 1939-47 were no more or less worthy of recognition; they just happened to win the right games at the wrong time in Wyoming’s football timeline.

As a refresher, here are the champions from the “dead era” and how they won their respective titles:

1947: Rawlins. The Outlaws went 8-0-2 and were the Big Five champions; they refused all postseason game offers.

1946: Sheridan. The Big Five champions went 8-0-2 and beat Cody 20-19 in the first “Turkey Bowl,” the unofficial state championship game, played on Thanksgiving day in Casper. By the way, I think it was this particular game that really galvanized the effort for a state championship playoff system in later years….

1945: Cheyenne Central. Went 9-0, with victories over Torrington, Rawlins, Natrona, Laramie and five out-of-state foes.

1943: Cheyenne Central. Went 8-0-1. First undefeated season in school history. Topped Rock Springs, Rawlins, Natrona and Laramie in in-state play. (A case could also be made for the team from the Heart Mountain Japanese internment camp, which went undefeated and un-scored upon. However, the Eagles were not allowed to fully participate in district play, and Powell — the team that eventually won the Northwest district — refused to schedule Heart Mountain. Powell beat Worland 19-13 in the district championship game on Thanksgiving.)

1942: Natrona — although the Mustangs needed some help. The Mustangs went 6-1-1, with the only loss a 20-14 Armistice Day defeat to Sheridan. That loss left the door open for unbeaten Green River to stake a claim to the title, but the Wolves lost their season finale on the same day, 13-7 to Rock Springs. No other large-school squads finished undefeated that season, so by default the mythical crown fell to the best one-loss team, that being Natrona.

1940: Rock Springs and Sheridan split the claim to the title. Rock Springs went 10-0, shutting out its final eight opponents while giving up just 13 points for the season. Sheridan finished 7-0-1, the lone tie coming against Billings, Mont. The schools did not play each other, but had three common opponents in Cheyenne Central (Rock Springs 19-6; Sheridan 7-6), Laramie (Rock Springs 13-0; Sheridan 7-6) and Natrona (Rock Springs 13-0; Sheridan 7-0). (Powell, which lost to Sheridan in the opening week of the season but later claimed to have won the game by forfeit, also laid an unofficial claim to the state title.)

1939: Natrona. Went 8-1, with the lone loss to Billings, Mont.; beat previously unbeaten Sheridan on Armistice Day to win the unofficial title. NC also beat Midwest, Laramie, Cheyenne Central and five out-of-state opponents.

After much thought on the subject, I have decided to add these schools to my list of state champions. The list had long included both official and unofficial champions, and now I feel like these schools can earn the credit they deserve.

Of course, this wasn’t easy for me. It took a ton of time to consider the accomplishments of each team in each season, examining my own records and cross-checking them with the newspaper rankings and reports of the time. In each season, I have maintained the original “consensus” mythical champion, the one chosen by the most newspapers. In years like 1940 and 1942, that was difficult, but in most other years this was a straightforward, if somewhat time-consuming, process on my end.

Part of the confusion of the “dead era” recognition comes with the other championship “dead era” in Wyoming’s history, that from 1962-67 for all schools and from 1968-74 for all but the largest schools. Those years, teams were awarded mythical championships through a statewide poll, usually conducted by United Press International. The winner of that poll, taken after the final regular season game of the year, was generally regarded as the mythical state champion for that classification.

However, such a statewide poll did not exist between 1939 and 1947. Instead, newspaper reporters published their own rankings at the end of the season. Sometimes they agreed. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes, they bickered back and forth at each other in print.

Sports reporters stood in one of three camps: those who shouted loudly for a playoff; those who said the WHSAA should form a committee of sportswriters and coaches to pick a champion (a committee that, of course, would include that particular sports writer); and those who said the current system was fine, especially because schools couldn’t bear extra expenses for playoffs during wartime.

It didn’t help reporters that any coach could stake a claim to a state championship. At the end of the year, most teams that were undefeated claimed a mythical state title. For example, in 1947, teams claiming the state championship included both big-shot Rawlins (8-0-2) and tiny Manville (6-0). No fewer than six teams claimed the mythical championship in 1942.

For now, we can’t look to the WHSAA for clarification. the WHSAA Web site. The WHSAA mishmashes which mythical champions they list and which they don’t on the football champions listing on its Web site. Their list of champions includes two unofficial champions, 1939 (Casper) and 1940 (Rock Springs and Sheridan) as well as the mythical champs from 1962-67, but not those from 1941-47 nor the unofficial title-holders from small schools from 1968-74. The WHSAA’s decision to list the 1939 and 1940 champs doesn’t make much sense to me, as the 1939 and 1940 champions seem just as valid, at least as far as the WHSAA should be concerned, as those championships won from 1941-47. The champs from 1962-67, especially at the small-school level, also seem just as valid as those earned from 1968-74.

Nevertheless, all those mythical championships weren’t the WHSAA’s to award anyway. They were a newspaper brainchild. Deciding a champion helped sell newspapers — something many columnists admitted to during this era. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, deciding a mythical state title-holder would have been all but impossible without the help of the newspapers.

What underlines not recognizing the champions of these nine years is that it somewhat undercuts the contributions of the players who played during this era. Other years have three, four or even five champions listed; now, the players from this era can at least look back and point to one team as the best, even if it is “mythical.”

School: St. Mary’s/SetonNickname: GaelsColors: blue and whiteStadium: Okie Blanchard StadiumState championships: NoneTimes worth remembering: For years, St. Mary’s struggled against a Class A schedule, but after dropping to Class B in 1972 the Gaels finally found success. Their first year in Class B was their best — in 1972, St. Mary’s went 10-0 and had five shutouts on their way to the mythical state championship.Times worth forgetting: From 1960-71, St. Mary’s never had a winning season. Consistently the whipping boys for teams like Torrington, Gillette and Lusk, the Gaels struggled throughout the 1960s, culminating with back-to-back 0-8 seasons in 1968-69. Those 16 losses were part of a bigger 21-game losing streak. The program’s official bottom came in the last game of the 1969 season, a 93-6 loss to Torrington that set a state record for most points allowed in an 11-man game.Best team: Although the 1972 team went unbeaten, the single best team might have been the Seton team from 1985, which went 8-3 and lost to Shoshoni in the 2A championship game. Consistently tough defensively, Seton never gave up more than 18 points in any game — that being the 18-7 loss in the title game. The team had four first-team all-staters, a mark topped that year only by champion Shoshoni’s five.Biggest win: The game that really needed to happen in 1972 — the one that would have pitted St. Mary’s against Glenrock for the mythical state title — never happened. But in the first game of the 1973 season, the Gaels traveled north to face the Herders in what basically amounted to a grudge match. It was the only game the two teams played against each other in the 1970s and, even though the teams were different, it still meant plenty to those players and coaches who were subject to the debate following the end of the 1972 season in which both teams finished unbeaten and claimed mythical state titles. St. Mary’s won 18-6, and put to rest — even if only in their own minds — the debate about which program might have won if the teams had played about 300 days prior.Heartbreaker: The school’s only berth in an official state championship game ended in disappointment, as the 1985 Seton squad lost to Shoshoni 18-7 in Cheyenne. The 1985 season was the school’s first trip to the playoffs, and after a 7-6 upset of Moorcroft in the semifinals, Seton looked like the team of destiny. The Wranglers crushed those hopes, though, and the Gaels made the playoffs only one more time before the program ended after the 1990 season.

It’s no coincidence that the Wyoming High School Activities Association and Wyoming’s statewide football playoffs were both born in the same year, 1931. It wasn’t until the WHSAA (then known as the Wyoming High School Athletic Association) stepped up to organize a playoff that schools, together, took the steps they needed to take to determine a state champion.

However, organizing the state’s football programs into one cohesive playoff system proved much tougher than anticipated.

It shouldn’t have been that hard. Four districts, four champions, semifinals that determined a northern and a southern champion and then a state championship game. But after starting playoffs in 1931, the WHSAA dropped them after the 1938 season — mostly because the districts had trouble deciding which teams to send on to the playoffs, but partly because the WHSAA was tired of dealing with all the drama.

Back then, there was only one classification of football in Wyoming, and only four teams qualified for the playoffs. One team each qualified from the northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest districts. The northeast and northwest champions played each other in the first round, as did the southeast and southwest champions. Those winners then faced off in the championship game, usually on Thanksgiving.

The trouble with the system went deeper than just deciding which four teams went to the playoffs. Problems also arose even after the four teams won — or, perhaps more accurately, were chosen — as their district’s champion.

Understanding the system relies on understanding the WHSAA in the 1930s. The organizing group was in its infancy and consisted of only four board members. Unlike today, there was no commissioner, no associate commissioner, no 20-member board of directors. In fact, there was no staff at all. The WHSAA was simply those four board members, one from each district, usually from larger schools.

In reality, the WHSAA stayed out of the regular season as much as possible. But rarely did a year pass between 1931 and 1938 where the WHSAA did not, or was not asked to, intervene.

For example, in 1932, Cody won the northwest district championship, but the Broncs refused to make the journey to Buffalo, the home of the northeast champions, to play the Bison in the semifinals. Cody officials asked for the game to be played in Cody, or for Buffalo to help defray the Broncs’ travel expenses. Buffalo was willing to do neither. The WHSAA intervened and threw Cody — which was 8-0-1 — out of the playoffs. Thermopolis, the northwest runners-up who were willing to make the trip to Buffalo, replaced Cody in the bracket on the Thursday before the game on Saturday. Thermopolis went on to win the state championship, beating Buffalo in the semifinals before topping Kemmerer in the title game.

The WHSAA didn’t make any friends in Sheridan during that 1932 season, either. After Buffalo beat Sheridan 6-0 on the final day of the regular season to win the northeast district crown, Sheridan appealed the game to the WHSAA, claiming the Bison used an ineligible player — perhaps not coincidentally, a player who had played at Sheridan the year before. The WHSAA agreed that Buffalo should not earn credit for the victory. But rather than force Buffalo to forfeit, the WHSAA scheduled a rematch between the two schools the Tuesday before the playoffs. Sheridan refused to play the game, saying the forfeit of the game that had already been played should give Sheridan the title. The WHSAA disagreed, and since Sheridan didn’t play the rematch, Buffalo moved into the playoffs.

The 1935 season was even more confusing, as it closed with problems in three of the four districts.

The northwest crown was confusing to decide in 1935 as well, but at least the WHSAA didn’t have to be involved in it. Worland and Thermopolis tied for the southern half of the district title, and since they tied each other during the regular season, they played another game shortly after the end of the regular season. Thermopolis won that game 20-0, but lost to Powell, the team that won the northern half of the district championship, in the annual district championship game.

Deciding the northeast crown was even more confusing, as Sheridan, Newcastle and Midwest all staked their claim to the top spot. To settle the confusion, Newcastle and Sheridan scheduled a game — on their own volition — to decide the title. After Sheridan beat Newcastle, though, the WHSAA ruled that Midwest’s claim was just as valid as Newcastle’s and forced the Broncs to play the Oilers on the Wednesday before the playoffs started. Sheridan won that game, as well, then somehow managed to beat Powell on just one day’s rest in the semifinals before losing to Rock Springs in the title game. The Broncs finished the season by playing five games in 17 days.

In the southeast, Laramie, Casper and Cheyenne all tied at the top of the district (each went 1-1 against the others) and played the state’s first triangular playoff. Although that playoff was won by Casper, Torrington and its perfect league record was never even considered as a possible playoff team — the WHSAA said that since the Trailblazers had not played any of the “Big Three,” they were not eligible to win the district crown.

The end of the 1935 season exemplified the problem faced by smaller schools, especially those in the southeast district dominated by Cheyenne, Casper and Laramie. With the playoffs set up as they were, the smaller schools rarely had realistic chances at claiming district titles. In addition to Torrington’s claim to the district championship in 1935, Douglas was given a similar short shrift in 1936. The Bearcats had beaten seven district foes without a loss but hadn’t played any of the “Big Three.” Therefore, their claim to the district championship was tossed out by the WHSAA. According to an article in the Casper Tribune-Herald, the four-member board also told Douglas “the Bearcats had not shown themselves of championship caliber, having been decisively defeated by the Midwest Oilers, an eleven defeated 47-0 by the Indians and 30-0 by the Mustangs.” More than any of the seven district victories, the WHSAA had looked at the Bearcats’ one out-of-district loss to determine if Douglas was truly worthy of the playoffs.

By 1937, the WHSAA was trying to step out of the way . By 1938, the group decided all the grief wasn’t worth it.

In 1937, a controversial set of rule interpretations gave Lovell the northwest district championship over Worland, even though the two teams never played each other. Worland appealed. However, this time, the WHSAA put the onus on the district to decide the champion, and a three-member board of northwest district overseers kept the title with Lovell.

Even so, the WHSAA still continued to catch heat for the northwest’s decision, and midway through the 1938 season, the WHSAA ended its sanctioning of a postseason football tournament.

An Associated Press story on Oct. 22, 1938, explained the WHSAA’s decision, and the WHSAA made it crystal clear why the playoffs were abolished: “Association officials explained it was the general sentiment of the association members that the tournament be abolished. Disagreements, they explained, occurred frequently over team classifications and teams participating, and it was believed better to let the tourney go and permit the various districts to make their own decisions as to what should be done.”

The 1938 district races and playoffs were completed without incident. It was another 10 years before schools put aside the hard feelings and organized statewide playoffs again, although by 1948 the postseason was organized in a much different fashion… and, to get there, the state had to go nine years’ worth of discussions and nine football seasons without an official state champion.

Check back next week for the second part of a look back at history, Wyoming’s playoff “dead era” from 1939 to 1947.

School: GilletteNickname: CamelsColors: purple and goldStadium: Camel StadiumState championships: 1998, 2000, 2006 and 2008Times worth remembering: Gillette wouldn’t be the perennial power it is today without the ramp-up that occurred in the mid-to-late 1990s. From 1997-2000, the Camels went 34-5 and won a pair of state championships, establishing the groundwork for Gillette’s success in the 21st century.Times worth forgetting: The jump from Class A to Class AA was especially hard on the Camels. After making the jump in 1971, Gillette lost 18 consecutive games, finally breaking the streak with a 7-0 win over Sturgis, S.D., to start the 1973 season. The Camels also beat Sheridan in 1973 to gain its first AA league win, but also got shut out in its final five games of that season, ending the three-year stretch from 1971-73 with a record of 2-24-1.Best team: The Camels of 2000 were a rare mix of talent and timing. Gillette only had two “close” games in its 10-0 title run — a 13-9 win over Broomfield, Colo., and a 28-7 victory over Laramie in the championship game — and won its other eight games by at least 31 points. The Camels had six shutouts and outscored their foes by an average of 38-3. In fact, Gillette scored more than twice as many points in its first game (62) as its opponents did all season (30).Biggest win: Ask the folks around Gillette, and they’ll tell you that none of the championships were as good as the first. The 14-7 win over Laramie in the 1998 4A title game — and the eventual winning touchdown catch by Josh Oster in the third quarter — was worth the wait. It was the Camels’ first official championship, but not its last; since then, Gillette has won three more state titles.Heartbreaker: For as good as the 1998 title was, it could have happened a year earlier if not for a 10-7 loss to Sheridan in the 4A semifinals. The top-seeded Camels had beaten Sheridan 42-23 in the Energy Bowl earlier in the season, but never got their offense rolling in the playoff matchup. Still, Gillette had a chance to send the game to overtime, but Jesse Swan’s 38-yard field goal attempt with 29 seconds sailed just wide – by most estimates by less than a foot.

Wow. Nearly 3,000 more games over the course of 13 seasons — the newest site update was a massive one. However, now, every season from 1933 to 1945 is posted here for you to check out.

The late 1930s and early 1940s were definitely an interesting time in Wyoming’s high school football history. From the playoff structure to school infighting to six-man football to World War II, this was a time of change. I don’t think any other time period saw as much change in Wyoming high school football as the 12 years from 1934 to 1946… but I’ll fill you in on all that later.

Most of all, take the time to browse at your own pace, looking at what you want when you want. Enjoy what I’ve posted. After all, that’s why it is there in the first place.

Meanwhile, for me, the research continues. I’ve been slowed down by life a bit this summer, but hopefully within the next 10 months, my research will be “done.” Coe Library awaits….

(By the way, the latest update helped me reach an interesting milestone for this site. I have now logged 20,014 games, finally breaking that 20,000 barrier! If you’re interested, I keep a running total after each site update on the front page of the site.)

It’s with much regret to the citizens of Westville, Illinois, that I write this post. After all, they’re going to have to change their sign. Because it’s wrong.

Westville claims the nation’s first lighted high school football game. It came in 1928, on Sept. 21 of that year, in a game against Milford, according to the IHSA (scroll down about 1/3 of the way down the page). Westville even won the game, 26-6.

There’s just one little problem with that claim: It’s inaccurate. Midwest, Wyoming, hosted the first night football game in November 1925.

A full four years before the first professional night game, and three years before Westville, the Oilers hosted Casper High School (now Natrona) on Nov. 19, 1925. Casper won the game 20-0; Midwest won style and novelty points. About 400 people turned out to watch the game, played under floodlights installed by the Midwest Refining Co. at the location of Midwest’s current community softball field. The game was played in cold temperatures (after all, it WAS nighttime in late November) and with a football that had been painted white.

Now, nearly every high school in the state has lights. Only about a dozen schools in Wyoming are without them.

And, of course, the tradition of Friday night lights did not remain solely a Wyoming tradition. It is now Americana — a tradition for tens of thousands of communities across the country. (Never mind that Nov. 19, 1925, was a Thursday…)

School: Rocky MountainNickname: GrizzliesColors: brown and yellowStadium: Grizzly StadiumState championships: 1992, 1995, 1997 and 1998Times worth remembering: After a series of struggles, the Grizzlies finally came into their own in 1992 and started one of the state’s great dynasties. In the eight seasons from 1992-99, the Grizzlies were a combined 71-6, including 38-1 from 1995-98, and won four state titles.Times worth forgetting: The combination of three storied programs — Byron, Cowley and Deaver-Frannie — didn’t get off to the best of starts. The first three years of Rocky Mountain High School, from 1983-85, the Grizzlies went 3-5, 0-7 and 1-7.Best team: There’s plenty to choose from when it comes to Rocky Mountain, but the 1998 team stands out from the rest. That season, Rocky won every game by at least 18 points (the 34-16 midseason victory over Burlington was the Grizzlies’ closest game) and scored at least 32 points in every game. The average score? 47-14. Rocky had eight first-team all-state selections and a pair of CST Super 25 first-team picks.Biggest win: Although Byron, Cowley and Deaver-Frannie had distinguished records on their own, it took 10 years for Rocky Mountain to fuse the talent from the three communities into one cohesive unit. That’s partly why the 10-7 victory over Wind River in the 1992 championship — the first for Rocky and the 12th for the three communities — was so important. Kenny May scored the winning touchdown for the Grizzlies in the fourth quarter, letting loose a celebration years in the making.Heartbreaker: As noted, the Grizzlies went 38-1 from 1995-98. And it’s the one loss that’s still somewhat haunting. The 34-20 loss to Moorcroft in the 1A-DI semifinals in 1996 was the end of an 18-game winning streak, and after the loss the Grizzlies went on to win 28 in a row. Moorcroft was no fluke — the Wolves were undefeated in ’96 and won the state title — but, for Rocky, losing was. And if the Grizzlies could have found a way to win that Saturday in Byron, who knows how long that winning streak could have gone?

So the big news for today is that I’m starting to upload the seasons 1933 through 1945 onto the Web site. It will take several days, maybe several weeks, so bear with me as I make changes to basically every page on this site. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

In other news, Nebraska microfilm, from the interlibrary loan department at Coe, arrived this week. It helped me with some updates:

Here are my most recent updates. Since I’m almost broke, I’m working at a job that actually pays money now, so updates may be a bit more few and far between until school starts again in August. I’m not sure anyone will notice but me….

Additions

Added Byron’s 33-6 victory over Colstrip, Mont., on Sept. 19, 1952.

Added a canceled game on Sept. 26, 1958, between the Worland Institute and Buffalo.

Added a pair of games for Byron for 1956 — at Burlington on Oct. 13 and at Manderson on Oct. 26 (and added both to the missing games list because I couldn’t find scores/results for either game). This was a state championship season for Byron, so I’m really trying hard to pin down every game they played in this season.

Added a pair of games for Albin for 1951 — at Dix, Neb., on Oct. 19 and at home against Harrisburg, Neb., on Nov. 2 (and added both to the missing games list because I couldn’t find scores/results for either game).

Missing games

Found the date for Deaver-Frannie’s 48-12 victory over Belfry, Mont., on Sept. 14, 1951.

Found the score for Huntley’s 38-0 loss to Lyman, Neb., on Sept. 27, 1957.

Found the location for Glendo’s 32-28 loss to Lyman, Neb., on Oct. 26, 1956 (it was in Glendo).